I know that all of you have your personal favourites among the Bournemouth players but the form of Lewis Grabban, Yann Kermorgant and Lee Camp has been truly outstanding since January and I am in a quandary as to who I think has been the best in the last few months for the Cherries.
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Lee Camp has been pulling off difficult saves as though his life depended on it. |
The impressive form of the team as a whole has been well highlighted but there are some ingredients that have just fallen into place as the season has progressed and these three players are chief among them in my opinion. A sharp shot saved in the opening minutes against Reading on Tuesday was about as busy as it got for Lee Camp in goal, although he had to pick the ball out of the net once in the second half. I don't expect he was too thrilled with the goal against him, but you can't now imagine anyone else playing in goal for the Cherries as he is so self assured and comes for crosses with great authority when he plays. We didn't have that at the start of the campaign, but Allsop will have learnt a lot this season and we may benefit from that next season.
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I can't imagine that Yann thought he would make the kind of impact he has in so few games. |
As long is Lee is keeping out the goals at the one end it seems that Grabban and Kermorgant are able to keep scoring or setting up chances for others at the other end on a regular basis no. Apparently the Cherries have never lost when they have both started a game for Bournemouth and the other stat hat Kris Temple likes to wheel out on a regular basis is that the team has never lost when they have score first this season. It is pleasing to see that Eddie Howe made a great choice for a strike partner for Grabban and that he and Yann are in top form. You never really know if things will work with a new partnership until they have played a few matches and now many onlookers will say that Bournemouth now have one of the best strike forces in the division.
There are other factors that are helping AFCB get the wins as well but these three in particular deserve a lot of praise I feel for how they have been playing. It could have been so different if Lewis had decided to leave for Brighton and knowing that Harry Redknapp would also have liked to take him tells me that AFCB are likely to be closely watched in the coming games as clubs look to make bids over the summer for new players. Eddie Howe's skill in keeping players at the club is going to be even more valuable over the summer months, but I certainly hope that he'll keep these three locked away somewhere.
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Lewis has simply re-written the record books and I hope he gets to 25 goals or more. |
As I say there are other factors and indeed other players that have also played exceptionally well in recent weeks like, Tommy Elphick, Steve Cook, Ian Harte, Andrew Surman and Matt Ritchie, but the three I have picked out for special attention have been phenomenal since January in my reckoning.
You can indicate who you think are going to pick up the awards come the month of May for player of the season in our little poll on the panel. I have not lifted everyone as I felt that players had to have played at least half of the games to be in contention so a few names are missing (like Yann, and Charlie) but I think the main contenders are there and if you disagree you can always click the others box.
Elphick/Cook/Francis/Harte in front of Camp deserve more than a passing mention. But then it's very tough to pick out individuals in what has been an outstanding squad performance.
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